Special US representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke on Tuesday said that the top leadership of Al Qaeda terrorist network is in the Af-Pak border region.
"Al Qaeda is in many places, but it's leadership is in the border areas between Afghanistan and Pakistan," Mr Holbrooke told the MSNBC news in an interview.
During the course of his interview, the US diplomat ruled out any negotiations with Taliban.
"There's no negotiation going on. There's nothing that comes close that word — There is no single enemy out there in the way that there was a Ho Chi Minh or Yasser Arafat or a Slobodan Milosevic to negotiate with," he argued.
"It's a lot of different people. One group Al Qaeda, there's no negotiating with, the others the Afghan Taliban, the Pakistani Taliban, other groups are split and they're in contact regularly with Karzai and his people," he said.
"They'll continue to-and I want to stress because everyone knows there's no simple military solution to this. That we support Afghan-led discussions of that sort, but don't use the word negotiations because there's nothing remotely resembling it going on," Mr Holbrooke said.
"If domestic and European opinion were to force a precipitous withdrawal, it would be an international triumph for Al Qaeda and Taliban which would deeply damage Americas interest throughout the world," he said in response to a question.